I am famous! - in a local sense anyway. My photo from Wednesday’s shoot was published in the regional newspaper today.
The front of the paper is emblazoned with the headline “Wolverhampton: A Winter Wonderland”, which has the caption “The stunning view of snow-covered Wolverhampton city centre taken from a crane”. Fair play, our local paper is very naturally proud of Wolverhampton – that’s its job. But one can’t help feeling a slight desperation in the photo. It impossible to escape the fact that the picture is of the same morbid non-descript, ring road encircled cluster of buildings, except covered in snow. And if they are so proud of this, one has to question why they have felt the need to sell their paper by offering readers a chance to escape for a break to London on the same front page. What a great issue to be associated with! And inside, tucked away on page 25, is yours truly.
As for our article itself, the Wolvophile angle is once again seemingly pushed with the headline “Wolves Shirt Request”. In the photo, I am the one leaning down on the kerb playing an inflatable guitar, with my colleague draping a Wolverhampton Wanderers shirt above me. The caption says that we are “getting set to hand over a Wolves shirt to members of (a) rock band”. It must be stressed, don’t believe all you see and read in this piece. Despite the implications in use of the words ‘getting set’, we will not stay frozen in this ridiculous position on the street until the band arrives next week. Neither is this a practice for the pose we will adopt when we actually make the presentation of the shirt to a probably bewildered rock band. I am afraid to report that this is merely an illusion used by the paper, and we simply made this pose for photographic purposes.
Sadly, the text is not much better either. “The staff at Wolverhampton W- Hall have had an unusual request from a band due to play there next week… [a] band have requested a football shirt of the city’s home team as part of their backstage requests. ” the piece opens.
We were not, as is implied, thinking “Ooh, look at this crazy band asking for a local football team shirt. This is so bizarre we must immediately call the press about it”. Let me assure you this didn’t happen, because as the piece progresses, it transpires that “this isn’t the first time the Brazilian frontman has been presented with a Wolves top, [as they] played in the city five years ago and made the same request then”. Surely this makes the earlier use of the word “unusual” completely redundant and incorrect then? If the band have played twice and asked for the same thing on both occasions, surely by definition, this request has more actually now become “usual”?
Maybe I’m being a bit overly cynical and pedantic. It is the paper’s job to aggrandize the region it serves, so surely the important thing is that for some inexplicable reason, the city of Wolverhampton is being recognized by an international band. Is this because Wolverhampton is so bloody special? Well actually, no. The article even manages to destroy its own myth-making towards the end of the story, saying “Whichever town they’re playing in, they always ask for a football shirt.”
Well what a bloody anticlimax that is! Why the hell did they put that bit in? If they’re even now dispelling the showy-offy bit, this only begs the question - what is the actual point of the article? I for one can’t see it; and I was in even in the piece!
Oh well, what should I care? At least I have a new-found fame. And it is for this reason I stayed in this evening. I couldn’t stand the thought of all those strangers coming up to me in the street. “Wow, I can’t believe it. It’s that bloke from the papers!” I imagine they’d scream, before going on with their parasitic ways, trying to get a piece of me. “Go on, do that thing.” They’d insist, “You know, that kneeling on the pavement playing an inflatable guitar”.
The front of the paper is emblazoned with the headline “Wolverhampton: A Winter Wonderland”, which has the caption “The stunning view of snow-covered Wolverhampton city centre taken from a crane”. Fair play, our local paper is very naturally proud of Wolverhampton – that’s its job. But one can’t help feeling a slight desperation in the photo. It impossible to escape the fact that the picture is of the same morbid non-descript, ring road encircled cluster of buildings, except covered in snow. And if they are so proud of this, one has to question why they have felt the need to sell their paper by offering readers a chance to escape for a break to London on the same front page. What a great issue to be associated with! And inside, tucked away on page 25, is yours truly.
As for our article itself, the Wolvophile angle is once again seemingly pushed with the headline “Wolves Shirt Request”. In the photo, I am the one leaning down on the kerb playing an inflatable guitar, with my colleague draping a Wolverhampton Wanderers shirt above me. The caption says that we are “getting set to hand over a Wolves shirt to members of (a) rock band”. It must be stressed, don’t believe all you see and read in this piece. Despite the implications in use of the words ‘getting set’, we will not stay frozen in this ridiculous position on the street until the band arrives next week. Neither is this a practice for the pose we will adopt when we actually make the presentation of the shirt to a probably bewildered rock band. I am afraid to report that this is merely an illusion used by the paper, and we simply made this pose for photographic purposes.
Sadly, the text is not much better either. “The staff at Wolverhampton W- Hall have had an unusual request from a band due to play there next week… [a] band have requested a football shirt of the city’s home team as part of their backstage requests. ” the piece opens.
We were not, as is implied, thinking “Ooh, look at this crazy band asking for a local football team shirt. This is so bizarre we must immediately call the press about it”. Let me assure you this didn’t happen, because as the piece progresses, it transpires that “this isn’t the first time the Brazilian frontman has been presented with a Wolves top, [as they] played in the city five years ago and made the same request then”. Surely this makes the earlier use of the word “unusual” completely redundant and incorrect then? If the band have played twice and asked for the same thing on both occasions, surely by definition, this request has more actually now become “usual”?
Maybe I’m being a bit overly cynical and pedantic. It is the paper’s job to aggrandize the region it serves, so surely the important thing is that for some inexplicable reason, the city of Wolverhampton is being recognized by an international band. Is this because Wolverhampton is so bloody special? Well actually, no. The article even manages to destroy its own myth-making towards the end of the story, saying “Whichever town they’re playing in, they always ask for a football shirt.”
Well what a bloody anticlimax that is! Why the hell did they put that bit in? If they’re even now dispelling the showy-offy bit, this only begs the question - what is the actual point of the article? I for one can’t see it; and I was in even in the piece!
Oh well, what should I care? At least I have a new-found fame. And it is for this reason I stayed in this evening. I couldn’t stand the thought of all those strangers coming up to me in the street. “Wow, I can’t believe it. It’s that bloke from the papers!” I imagine they’d scream, before going on with their parasitic ways, trying to get a piece of me. “Go on, do that thing.” They’d insist, “You know, that kneeling on the pavement playing an inflatable guitar”.
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